


A Wobbly Step, A Sure Step

by kaboom



Category: Senyuu.
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-20
Updated: 2016-05-20
Packaged: 2018-06-09 16:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,955
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6915250
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaboom/pseuds/kaboom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Being a hero isn't always glamorous. Or easy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Wobbly Step, A Sure Step

10 losses over 10 fights. Did this rookie have any sort of training before becoming a part of this whole thing? He should have picked another royal soldier to impersonate instead of Hero #45's. To be perfectly honest, he wasn't sure this one would even make it to the Demon Lord before kicking the bucket.

Well, that was what he would have thought if he ever had any intention of letting it get that far.

Really, Alba being weak made things easier for him. If Alba was strong, it could be a problem if things really went south and he came face to face with the Demon Lord. Ross was certain that the spell of eternal sleep hadn't been broken yet, but the rumours were concerning, and letting any of the heroes succeed at defeating the Demon Lord would mean that all of the effort he had made so far would be for nought. He still wasn't sure whether there even was a way to save Crea, but he could at least make sure that he wouldn't die. That seemed to be the only thing he could do.

While Ross was preoccupied with all of these burdensome thoughts, Alba was being beaten to near death by a wailing Nisepanda. He wasn't moving much anymore though, and that meant it was time for Ross to intervene again. He reached for the unnecessarily large sword at his back, and slashed at the Nisepanda with one smooth overhead swing. And just like that, the Nisepanda glowed and faded away, signifying its return to the demon world. After putting away his weapon, Ross glanced down at Alba, who was groaning in pain.

“Hey. Hey, Hero. Are you alive?” Ross asked as he kicked poor Alba in the gut a couple of times. He only got a few yelps out of Alba at first, and it took a few moments still for the boy to manage any words.

“That really hurt... Why did you kick me!?”

“Oh good, you _are_ alive. I thought I would need to arrange a funeral for you this time.”

Alba grumbled and tried to prop himself up with the sword that really didn't suit him. He had risen to his knees, but any efforts to stand up fully were met with quick jolts of pain through his body. Ross just stared. He was still trying this hard despite being beaten to a near pulp more than once. He wasn't much of a hero when it came to fighting, but there were some other qualities that were worth taking notice of.

“Soldier, aren't we supposed to be working together...?”

“Don't be silly, we already are working together. You nearly get killed, and then I save you.”

“What does me nearly getting killed over and over have to do with working together!?”

“It's entertaining,” said Ross as his face lit up with an angelic smile.

“Don't smile about it! I'm really in pain here, you know!”

Speaking of noteworthy qualities, this was one of them. Picking on Alba like this was the most fun he'd had in a very long time. Sometimes he even forgot about the gravity of the situation they were both in. Just the possibility of taking his mind off of his responsibilities for a while was a luxury that didn't come around all that often. There was a very small part of him deep down that would ask what it would be like if his life could be like this all of the time, but it was always squashed in short order. These carefree days would be fleeting, just like they had been long ago. Unfortunately, this particular reverie wasn't as easy to hide as the last one.

“Soldier?” Alba had managed to stand up again, although he still had to use his long sword as a crutch. His brow was furrowed, and his expression was somewhere between curiosity and worry.

“Hmm? Oh, you succeeded in picking yourself up again. I'm so proud of you.” Ross' words were coupled with a few slow claps. He wasn't sure what kind of face he had been making only moments before, but it must have been bad if Alba was looking that that.

Instead of letting out another retort, Alba just sighed and hung his head, as if that sort of response was a foregone conclusion. The fact that Alba was already starting to used to this was also entertaining in its own way. “Anyway, I can still walk, so let's get going.”

Alba turned and started hobbling off, but Ross made no such effort. He was still saying he could walk even after that, huh? The edges of Ross' mouth turned up, showing the very beginning of a smile. It was time for him to intervene even more. “Hero, how do you plan to fight any monsters when you can't stand on your own?”

Alba's shoulders visibly tensed at the question. He tried to get an excuse out, but it took him a while before he managed to verbalize it properly. “W-well... Couldn't you fight them instead for a while?”

“Don't wanna.” Ross crossed his arms and turned his head away.

“Are you a kid!?”

Ross continued on, ignoring Alba's complaint. “At any rate, you won't be any help to anyone if you continue to bleed out. You were useless before, but you'll be even more useless if your wounds don't heal properly.”

“Right now my heart hurts more,” said Alba gloomily. Being called useless was not exactly helping his self-esteem, considering it must have already been bruised by losing so many fights in a row. Despite his aching heart, Alba limped back over to to Ross, who had produced a first aid kit from their shared pack of supplies.

“Sit down.”

Alba hesitated, but he eventually lowered himself to the ground. He still ended up wincing, but that seemed to be the best he could manage. If he had broken something because of one of those beatings, Alba's complaining would probably have been a lot louder, so Ross felt confident in thinking that he wouldn't have to set any bones today. Still, what a persistent hero he had ended up with. Most people would have stopped long before getting to this point, but apparently Alba would have kept on going if Ross hadn't said anything. He chose not to think about that too much however, and instead knelt down next to Alba to clean and treat his wounds.

All he did was press some gauze to a wound, but Alba flinched when the fabric touched his skin. Ross wasn't about to hold back a smirk after that, although it was tinged with something other than amusement. Of course the little hero would react that way. Ross had been picking on him from the moment they met, after all. To anyone else those words may have rung hollow, but for Ross, they were simply the truth and nothing more.

“Soldier, do you have to press that hard? It hurts!”

Ross blinked, letting a moment pass before answering. “Do you want to keep bleeding? Because that's what will happen if I let go now.”

“Ugh...”

Ross' work as a medic continued in silence after that. They only had so much water to spare for cleaning Alba's wounds, and ice for the swelling was out of the question. After staunching the bleeding, there wasn't much else he could do beyond using antibiotics and applying bandages. Aside from using his magic of course, but it wasn't like he had a whole lot of mana left to spare, either. The old fashioned way would have to do, although it wasn't helped by Alba not sitting still. Considering that he had wanted to continue on despite his injuries, it wasn't hard to figure out why he would be doing that. However, Ross wasn't about to just let that go, and he gave Alba a smack to the back of the head.

“Please stop squirming. I'm almost done.”

“Ow.” Alba held his head, but he sat still, most likely out of his sense of self-preservation. Another moment of awkward silence passed before he spoke up again. “Uh... Thanks for helping me with this.”

If Alba had been trying to catch Ross off guard, then Ross' response must have seemed a little underwhelming. For the time being, all he did in response to those unexpected words was that he stopped wrapping a bandage around Alba's arm.

“You watched me get beat up over and over, but you're really not—”

“By the way,” Ross interrupted, “I'll be sending you a bill for this later.”

Alba's head whipped around to stare at Ross with a look that was equal parts horror and shock. “You ruined the moment!”

Now that the tension in the air wasn't quite so thick, Ross resumed his work. “Babying heroes isn't in my job description,” said Ross as he reached for a smaller adhesive bandage. “I'm your royal soldier now, yes, but I won't always be here to help you. You'll be on your own someday.” Though the circumstances surrounding his departure would likely be much different than whatever Alba was thinking of right then.

“Soldier...”

“And it's really quite embarrassing to be the royal soldier for a hero who's so weak. Seriously,” Ross added with a condescending grimace on his face.

“Hey! I'll get stronger! You just wait!”

“And when will that be? It won't count if you get strong the day before you die of old age.”

“It's not going to take that long! Geez!” Alba nearly crossed his arms in defiance, only to relent at the last second. He was learning. “You don't have any faith in me at all, Soldier.”

“After watching you lose ten fights in a row, I've got good reasons not to.”

“There's more than one reason!?”

“Yes. There's ten of them, in fact.”

Alba fell silent. If it was possible, a dreary raincloud with a few thunderclaps mixed in for good measure would have settled over his head by now. That gave Ross the chance to finish dressing Alba's injuries without any more interruptions, not to mention that he could now be sure that Alba was wrapped up properly. His dressings would likely need to be changed at some point, but Ross was fairly certain that they had enough bandages for that. At the very least it wasn't something he needed to think about right now.

“Alright, I'm done.”

Alba looked at himself and the result of Ross' work. Despite the soldier's attitude, nothing was out of order, and his injuries were wrapped neatly, although perhaps a little too firmly for Alba's liking. It was probably obvious that Ross had done this exact thing many times in the past. The little hero would just have to wonder about why that was, because he wasn't about to get any straightforward answers. Alba's first response wasn't a question, though.

“Now, Hero Alba's adventure can finally continue!”

Maybe that was Alba's way of trying to save face in light of everything that had just happened. Or maybe the prospect of being a hero was still new and fascinating enough that he could still say that so earnestly. Either way, when Alba tried to pick himself up again, he promptly fell on his face. He was still too hurt to do any sort of walking that day. Ross would have thought that this would have been obvious, but Alba really was that stubborn about it, apparently.

“Ow...”

“As much as I'd like to watch you fall on your face over and over, it would be best if we just stopped for the day.”

Alba just grumbled before rubbing his forehead against the ground with a nod.


End file.
